


irreconcilable differences

by wordtheef



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Porn, Blow Jobs, Canon Disabled Character, Cunnilingus, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fantasizing, Heavy Angst, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Masturbation, Modern Era, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Post-Divorce, Sex, Sex Toys, Sexual Fantasy, Sort of? - Freeform, Vibrators, extremely vague but it’s there, in love but not at peace, when bad things happen to good relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:55:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordtheef/pseuds/wordtheef
Summary: Brienne has some trouble and calls Jaime for help.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 33
Kudos: 162





	irreconcilable differences

**Author's Note:**

> started june 2020 or something like that, idk, i lost my notes but it definitely took forever

“I’m fine,” she says to Sansa, who is the first one to ask. “I’m fine” to Margaery and Renly and to her father, too, who at least has the decency to wait a few days before he asks after the mental health of his poor daughter, the pathetic divorcee.

She is _fine_ , she tells him: and then she asks about his garden.

She is fine, truly. It’s better this way — easier. She doesn’t have to clean up after the tidal wave of dishes Jaime left in his wake, as if carrying his plate to the kitchen sink was simply too much work; she doesn’t have to put up with his long, jittery complaints about everyone and everything

— complaining about her.

Now she makes her own goddamn coffee and she always finds the mail where she left it and he’s giving her an embarrassing amount of alimony that she is determined not ever to touch, and absolutely everything is _fine,_ except ...

She can’t get off.

It’s embarrassing. Humiliating. And it’s annoying, goddammit. There’s no damn reason for her libido to go with her husband. Ex-husband. Wasband. _Good riddance_ she tells him in her mind, and adds a _Fuck you, Lannister_ for good measure.

Still, here she is on Saturday night with a vibrator in her cunt and a strange feeling in her chest. Gods, she’s actually bored. She doesn’t even want to orgasm — not really. She only wants to sleep. Is she that old? That pathetic?

So — fine.

She takes it out, turns it off. Puts it on the bedside table, rabbit-ears up.

( _It’s a classic,_ Margaery had said, gesturing with the package in hand.

 _It’s embarrassing_ _,_ Brienne said. _And I’m supposed to ... where do the ears go?)_

It wasn’t like this when Jaime was around. Even at the end, when he was angry and she was angry and they couldn’t be in a room without shouting, they slept together — literally, in the same bed -- curled together like spoons in a drawer. She’d wake up in the morning to find him half-hard and still dreaming. Sometimes she went for a run and let him sleep and sometimes she woke him with a pinch, and sometimes she forgot that she wanted a divorce, when Jaime was there all golden and warm beside her.

She shifts.

Their bed is her bed now, along with the sheets and the pillows and the walls. Jaime didn’t want the house he had paid for, didn’t care if Brienne kept it, — “Burn the place down, if you like,” he’d told her. “Burn it all.” He’s so dramatic. The lawyers looked startled, edging on nervous, but Brienne only shrugged. _He’s always like this._

She doesn’t really want it -- this huge place he'd called "modest" without any niggling sense of self-awareness. But where else can she go? And Jaime has so many options. He can go anywhere he liked with that sort of money, that beautiful face.

Probably he has gone somewhere else by now. Probably he’s found a warm and welcome bed with Cersei, or Pia, or some stranger at the bar. Probably he’s there right now. Probably — probably —

But she has to know.

She fumbles for her phone.

Jaime answers on the second ring. Half-asleep, but he answers. “What‘s wrong?”

“I — nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing’s wrong. I called you by mistake.”

A pause. “It's past midnight.”

“I know.”

“We’re divorced.”

“I’m aware of that, too.”

Another pause, like he's weighing his words. “Is someone else there? Are you in trouble?”

She goes hot. He thinks that of her? That she’s going home with strangers from bars or apps? “I’m alone, I’m fine, I’m being stupid. Forget about it.”

He yawns. “Sure thing—”

"Were you asleep?"

"That was the plan," he says, with a hint of a growl.

"It's early for you.”

Movement on the other end, like Jaime is rolling over. "I’m getting old.”

“Oh,” says Brienne. “Is that why she left already? No hope of a second bout with an old man.”

Silence on the other end; she can’t even hear him breathe; and then a long, slow exhale. “What do you want, Brienne? Because I know you didn’t call just to talk.”

"I told you, it was an accident."

"Huh," he says: and stiffles another yawn.

But he doesn't hang up on her and he doesn't say anything more, and Brienne, hating herself, says: “Do you ever think about us?”

“... What?”

“Nothing.”

“You mean, do I ever ...?” He lets the sentence trail off, all suggestion and no substance.

He always was too aware of her.

She shouldn't have started this. "Go away. Go back to sleep. Forget about it.”

“Oh, no need for that. I'm awake now.” Laughter in his voice, and more rustling sheets; he’s sitting up. “Care to explain yourself, Tarth?"

She doesn't answer. She can hear him breathing now; she can feel him waiting.

“Do _you_ think about us?” he says.

“No.”

“You do.”

“I don’t.”

“But you want to.”

Heat flares in her face. "I didn't call you for phone sex."

“Are you sure? Because I hear something buzzing on your end of the line.”

“I’m hanging up, Jaime.”

“No. Stay here — stay on the line. Let me help.” His voice is warm, conciliatory. He might as well he here with her again. _Let me help,_ he’s said that to her a dozen dozen times, in bed and out of it. Do you need a hand? Jaime is sloppy and lazy and loves to pick a fight and he will never, not even once, admit that she is smarter - but she has never trusted a man more — she’s never been taken more at her word. If she tells him _leave me be_ , he’ll stand by and watch her fall rather than intercede.

He says now: “What should I do? What do you want?”

It is hard to breathe around everything that she wants. "Talk to me," she says. "Just ... talk."

“Like _I want your legs around me while I thrust hard at your cunt_ — is that the sort of thing you want?”

“Jesus, Lannister.”

He laughs again, soft this time. There’s no cruelty in it. Whatever he’s been, however often he upset her, he has never been cruel. “Tarth?”

“Yeah.”

“I want your legs tight around my waist while I thrust hard into your cunt.”

She turns red — not wholly with embarrassment. “Look. If—”

“I want to be between your thighs,” he says: and whatever shame she had about calling him is dissolving now, because she knows that sound in his voice. The gravel sound, the need.

And her body is responding. Does she really want to do this with him? Does it even matter anymore? Because there’s a certain ache between her legs, she wants to rub them together — to rub something.

She can think of a few things.

Jaime says: “I want you wet for me. I want to taste you.”

She swallows. Shifts. “Yeah?”

“I want to tease you with my hands and my tongue until you're begging — your back is arched up and your hands clench in the sheets. You get that flush down your chest, too, all pink and speckled. I like that.”

“This isn't the time to make fun of my freckles.” 

“Who's making fun? Are you touching yourself?”

“No,” she says, but she is. The slightest little movements around her clit, stroking downward. Nothing much has happened, she's not really wet yet. She could still put an end to this. Hang up on him and download some porn. It wouldn't be the first time.

But nothing is as good as Jaime.

He says: “You’re doing it right now. I know you are.”

“I’m not. Why do you think—” Her finger rubs a spot just right and her voice catches and breaks, the thread of her mind catches and breaks, it’s a second before she can go on — “Why — why think that?”

His voice is soft. “I know you. I remember you. If I were there, I’d ...”

“What?”

“I’d take you. I’d have you on top of me, we’d keep the lights off, I know you hate it with the lights on, but I’d have you there on me and I’d take you from beneath. You’d have to hold on the headboard,” he says: and yes she remembers when he did that, yes. That day. _I want to try something_ he said, and she was fine with that, she liked trying and she liked him, but _I’ll tie you_ _to the bed_ he said and she froze, she couldn’t even shake her head and so it was Jaime who said _Alright, no ropes, maybe you hold on until I say to let go?_

Jaime.

How she had loved him then. Like a flower in her chest, opening and blooming. It hurt terribly, and nothing had ever felt so right.

“I’ll kiss down your waist,” he says now — steady and calm? with that little rough spot in his throat, the hitch of heat, he’s getting hard — she knows it, she can feel it, she hears it in how he’s speaking, what he’s saying. “I kiss and lick and bite just a bit, down from your breasts to your hips, and I’ve got just one finger inside your cunt the whole time, just one ...”

 _Is this good,_ he had said, kissing her bare skin in the sunlight — _Do you like this?_ — asking her. Always asking. _Tell me what you like. Tell me what you want._

 _You_ , she’d told him. _I want you._

And later, when they were sweaty and sated: _I love you. I’ll always love you._

Jaime had only smiled.

She stared at him _._ _Why won’t you say it back?_ _You don’t want to be with me? I thought —_

_Of course I do. Gods, Brienne!_

_Then why —_

_I don’t like making promises. Not like that. Not things I can’t keep._

She shouldn’t be hurt, but — _You do love me?_

 _I have never loved anyone like I love you,_ he said. _I didn’t know I was capable of this._

A high pink flush clung to his cheeks; his mouth was swollen and red. He looked delicate, desperate, fragile. 

Still --

 _You don't think you'll_ keep _loving me,_ she said. _You think this will end._

 _I don’t think it will end. I don’t want it to end! But I can’t swear that any emotion will last forever._ _I've broken too many vows already_.

Brienne searched his face.

 _I love you, Tarth,_ he said _. I never want to be apart from you._

 _You promise?_ she said.

And Jaime laughed. _Yes. That much I can promise._

She wrapped her arms around him then, watching the fading rays of sun tangle in her ring, and wondered, not for the first time, if this engagement was a bad idea.

“Brienne?”

“Yeah.”

“Just checking.” He sounds amused.

Damn him. “What about you? You’re alone — right? What would I be doing ... what would you want me to ...” She stops. What is she _thinking?_ They’re divorced, they are broken up, they are _over_ , and it isn’t his fault that she doesn’t want to orgasm without him. “Nothing. Nevermind.”

“Tell me.”

“You tell _me_. What do you think about when you — do you think about us?”

He is quiet. _Never_ , he is going to say, or _Don’t be so needy,_ or - “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes I do.”

Her cunt twitches; her finger slips inside, easily. She’s hungry for it. The feeling of someone inside her; the sound of his voice in her ear, saying the dirtiest things ... “Talk to me.”

He sighs. “I think about you beneath me. The way you smell. How you move. Your breath coming hard, your knees at my waist. Those little gasping noises — Like that,” he says. “Yes.”

She is wet now, truly wanting; her hips shift. “Do you remember your birthday, last year? Not the party” — Tyrion took the whole group out for supper, and it went on for _hours_ — “but after. What happened after.”

Their hotel room. They were laughing, drunk on scotch and champagne, kissing in the elevator.

 _The sun’s coming up_ , Jaime had said. _It’s that late?_

 _It’s that early_. _No — don’t turn on the light. Let me do this._

And she knelt down on the rug and took him in her mouth, tasting him down her throat all salt and silk, heat on her tongue and his hand in her hair, his voice saying her name like no one else ever did, ever had, ever would — his thighs shaking under her touch. _I’m going to finish, I can’t wait._

She kissed him then and he pushed her down on the bed and spread her open, pushing apart her legs with his wrist, tugging down her underwear and licking biting licking while she fisted her hand in her mouth, hips bucking, gasping his name into her own fingers, her own palm.

“I remember,” says Jaime. His voice is as far away as it had been then, somehow. _I can’t wait._ “I don’t know that I ever thanked you for that.”

He’d fallen asleep in the thin early light, mouth open and snoring a little. Hear me roar.

Brienne went out and stood on the balcony and stared out at the ocean, wondering what it would be like to leave him.

She didn’t _want_ to go. Not then.

But she wanted to want it.

“You’ve eaten me out plenty,” she says now, speaking steadily. Yes. This is definitely a normal conversation. “If anything, I was in your debt.”

“And you felt the need to repay it? Why, Tarth.”

“Don’t make fun.”

“Never.”

She’s stroking herself faster now, in and out, teasing the edge, rubbing a thumbnail down her clit ... she doesn’t want to lie to him when she feels like this — open and warm — heated. She doesn’t want to lie to him ever. “I wish I could do it again. I want to do it right now.”

His voice is taut. “Don’t tease me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” She would, too. She’d take him down, all the way inside, licking her tongue flat along the veins, pulling back a little to make him moan — _Yes, like that, yes_ — wrapping her hand around the rest of it. _Like that._ She’d move slow, slow, and when he begged her to hurry, ...

“I’d tease you,” he says. “I’d hold your thighs open even when you tried to clench around my head, I’d flicker my tongue on your clit, push it inside your cunt—”

He’s stroking his cock, he _must_ be. Dawdling between his legs, hand around himself just right — heavy and hot and thick, she likes to do that ... wants ... 

“Jaime? Do you ever ...”

Do you ever want us back. Do you want me back — as a wife, a partner, a lover. The way he kissed her in the morning, bleary and still smiling, tasting of coffee and toothpaste; the way he listened to her when she complained about work, being passed over for promotions and being ignored at meetings, listening when she was angry with him, listening even when he was angry with her.

He'd give her anything except a lie, and none of it made up for what he didn't give her.

Even Hyle had said they'd be together always. Even Hyle called her beautiful.

 _I want a divorce_ she’d told Jaime one night over supper, dropping it in the middle of a story she was telling, and he tilted his head to the side, moved his arms from the table to fall in his lap. Sat up a little straighter. _Divorce?_ _On what grounds?_

 _Irreconcilable differences,_ she said. Her mouth was dry, dry, but she would not allow herself to take a sip of wine.

Jaime narrowed his eyes. _You think we’re different?_

_I —_

_What would you do if_ I _asked for a divorce?_

 _Don’t yell_ , she said. _There’s no reason to yell._

_Good try. My voice isn’t even raised. Answer me, Brienne. Since when do you cower from a question? What would you do if I wanted to leave? If you knew I was wrong?_

_I’m not wrong._ Her voice was thin, her throat was tight.

 _You are wrong,_ he said. _You’re wrong, and_ _you’re a fool ..._ _and if you want it, Tarth, it’s yours._ And he took a drink of wine. _The Dornish was a good choice,_ he said. _Pairs well with bullshit._

They’d fucked that night, against the wall in the bathroom — he came and kissed the back of her neck when she was brushing her teeth. Brienne pushed him away, and he moved his mouth to her jaw, moved his hand up her waist to her breast, moved his leg between her legs, moved her backwards a step until they were pressed together and pressed to the tile, cold against her back, cold against the heat between them, between her thighs, where Jaime was stroking, stretching, opening her and filling her. _Don’t leave me,_ he’d said into her hair. _Stay_.

But he signed the papers in his still-clumsy writing, and he told his lawyer to double her alimony, and after that first day — that first night — he hadn’t said a word in argument.

She'd waited for him to argue with her like he argued with everyone else, that famous Lannister tongue. Wanted it. Fight for me, fight for us. _Lie to me,_ she could have told him. _Tell me this will never end, tell me you'll love me forever._ He could have said that. Anytime, even with the papers in front of them and a pen in her nerveless fingers, he could have promised her the moon and she would have stayed.

Instead it was always and only _I love you,_ and Brienne heard at the end of every sentence _I love you for now_.

“Brienne.” His voice curls around her name, warm and low. Bare skin on white sheets, that’s in his voice; long nights hungry for each other, when there wasn’t enough time between sunset and daylight for all the things they wanted to do together, all the places they could explore. “What do you want?”

“Touch me,” she says. “Make me come” — but it’s her own hand that circles and teases, her own fingers on her body, wanting him. Make me stop wanting you.

“Let me touch you,” he says. “Close your eyes—”

She does: and then it really is him on her body, inside her body, rough now and moving fast, and his voice is saying something too low to hear, too sweet to believe, while she shakes and comes and cries out into the phone.

—And then she listens to the quiet.

“Jaime?” Please let him be there; please let him have hung up.

Silence, and then: “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. To — to have called. I’m sorry about that.”

“I thought it was an accident.”

“Look. If you’re going to be rude—”

“Never. Tarth?”

“... yeah. Yes. What?”

“Do you ever think about us?”

“Good night,” she says: and hangs up the phone.


End file.
